Tekashi 6ix9ine’s entourage, including an ex-cop, charged in NYC
Five members of rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine‘s entourage, including a retired NYPD cop, have been indicted over their alleged wild chase of a motorist for 20 blocks after he dared to shoot cell-phone video of the troubled artist.
Daniel Laperuta, 44, a former NYPD detective, is charged with robbery, criminal impersonation and falsely reporting an incident in the August crime, which began when the victim shot footage of the rapper after the man and his girlfriend spotted him in Harlem, Manhattan prosecutors said Monday.
The security team for the rapper-turned-snitch hopped in their SUVs and drove after the 34-year-old victim for 20 blocks — with their vehicles’ emergency lights flashing and sirens blaring.
At one point, Laperuta allegedly stopped and told a cop that the victim had threatened them with a gun — and made the claim again later at the 28th Precinct station house.
“A celebrity entourage is not a police department, and Manhattan is not the Wild West,” Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement after the indictment in the case.
“As alleged, these highly-compensated vigilantes caravanned through the streets of Harlem with sirens flashing in order to track a man down and steal and break his phone,” Vance said. “Along the way, a retired NYPD detective tried to cover up their conduct by lying to his former colleagues.”
Tekashi, 25, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, has been camera shy since being released from prison last year after testifying against the Nine Tray Gangsters, a street gang with which he had been affiliated.
Several videos circulating online show the rapper’s security detail in past confrontations with onlookers and gawkers.
In the August case, prosecutors said Laperuta and four other members of the entourage — Sammy Sprouse, brothers Christian and Edgardo Cortez and Kristian Fuhse — took part in the chase to grab the victim’s phone.
The four are charged with first- and second-degree robbery and criminal impersonation.
Prosecutors said that when the defendants cornered the victim, Sprouse pulled him out of the car, and Fuhse stomped the man’s phone — while Laperuta had his hand on his holstered gun and Christian Cortez pointed a Taser.
The suspects fled the scene when cops arrived.
Laperuta was the first of the crew to be arraigned Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where he pleaded not guilty and bail was set at $25,000 cash or $75,000 bond.
Christian and Edgardo Cortez were arraigned next, and both also pleaded not guilty and had bail set at $10,000 cash or $50,000 bond.
Sprouse and Fuhse are due to be arraigned at a future date.
“Well, I think there may have been an assault as part of what that individual did, which is what aggravated the response,” Laperuta’s lawyer, Todd Cushner, said Monday. “He was going to assault Tekashi, or he was in the process of assaulting Tekashi.”
Asked if Laperuta was coerced by the rapper to chase the victim for the phone, Cusher said, “He wasn’t coerced into anything.”
Additional reporting by Priscilla DeGregory
